MTG - Is it worth it to buy a Commander 2018 deck for Magic: The Gathering? 

That was actually the case. I remember the article on wizards website but somehow i cant find it anymore. They promised a higher power level thats why i wanted to miss out on the anthology because i thought that the new ones would be a higher powerlevel and no fun to play against the reprinted precons. I think that article got just deleted because some friends/people on reddit also remember that. It was sometime before the release of the Anthology 2 thats for sure.

Thanks, Professor, you have eased the pain of not being to preorder the set this year. I will say playing with Subjective Reality got me thinking of several deck-techs to bling the deck out and make incredible use of the extra commanders. The mechanics in some of these commanders were incredible, but they all seemed to lack the gas to really use them before a staple board wipe came along. This made them all feel like duds...... so whoever got the community thinking 5$ meant more power was severely mistaken. The only time I've ever seen 5$ guarenteeing more power is from one of your commander videos.

I believe they said the decks would have a "higher power" level. And tin foil hat theorists thought the Gods might be reprinted in the set.

R E I remember that article too and it got me hyped for this set of decks. But they aren't worth what they're charging this year, even if there wasn't a price increase.

Ben Baham Hey man. I bought two because retail therapy is a thing and let me tell you, I'm not impressed with this year's line up. The face commanders are cool, but better to buy as singles. Most of the subcommanders are meh, or don't fit the flow of the decks well at all and are also better off as singles.

But is it worth it?

Cameron Stradling relative

How so?

Cameron Stradling only you can know if it is worth for you to purchase these... relative.

Cameron Stradling Definitely. You get a lot of bulk crap, but you also get a few cards that are not overly likely to be printed outside of Commander products. So if there is just one of those cards you think you might want to play in one of the decks, I'd say buying the deck is worthwile. Especially since some of the by-catch almost always has it's uses.

But... but... but what about the beard? ;,(

Why did you have to re-upload the video? I watched the original and the quality was the same TCC quality in your videos. I hope you feel better.

Sly refernece with that Song. Have fun "MtGing the pain away" ;-)

Hope you feel better soon!

Be honest prof. It was the set that made you clammy and sick 😅 Jk Hope you are feeling better!

The upgrade path is pick whichever of these kickass new commanders you like, buy the single, and then build your own deck around it from the ground up. There's not much else here.

So disappointing.

I think Nature's Vengeance gives you some nice pieces to build a better land matters deck by adding stuff like Gitrog and Tireless Tracker and creatures that allow you to play an extra land on your turn

How would one upgrade Animatou? The deck's overall theme makes little sense.

Just got it to get some zombies and the basic Skeleton for a zombie deck I'm brewing.

someone got burnt

agreed if anything I feel like the matches are always staged and also they are just shilling the set so hard.

uh, yeah, no...

Yeah. I like those guys, but man did they hype/whore the shit out of the decks. I almost got them until I looked at the spoiler list.. And was like... But I could get Breya

fffan147 yes, please show us just how easy it would be to fully stage a 4-player edh game. I want to see a full play-by-play timeline, plus each player's script.

Michael Dickman Same, haha. I'm brand new to Commander and picked up the Jund deck

The decks are fun and offer great gameplay. You will have fun, don't worry. It's just that money value isn't enough to justify the new price tag

Hakkai Requiem I have to worry because i bought saheeli and also bought upgrades! Now im stuck with bulk deck, and for my pocket i spend a lot on this deck overall (including sleeves, box, dice and mainly upgrades)

Kidynamo123 No need to worry, these decks are certainly worth it for the brand new player, and you are bound to have fun times. Take your time and upgrade however you want!

feels bad man

It was time for my "once every 16 months haircut." Seriously, you can literally go back every 12-16 months and see when I cut my hair.

Yes, but the beard! THE BEARD!

You should just let it grow, Professor.. My dream, is to one day see you with a beard befitting of a Tolarian Professor.

I’m a fan of the long hair beard Prof: The grizzly prof but hey everyone needs some freshness now and then.

should definitely do that for halloween^

Alec Lancaster they could certainly be fun, but historically these decks provided players with alot of value. I can see these decks being good if you are a brand new player to commander but established players basically have no reason to buy the decks.

I guess that's why they got a B- and not an F.

Ted McGlothern As an established player, I can say that I don't regret purchasing the UR deck

The fact that i don't like is that they are made to be fun but basically if you play with other friends that are using one among the others pre cons. They have mechanics that are fun to play surely but they are not basically meant to win the game. I'm not saying that playing magic is only about winning. I'm saying that it seems they basically focused on some funny "tricks" instead of a real strategy.

Fortunately, 2019 Challenger Decks are pretty fine :) I'm a decently experienced player and I managed to defeat a fully pimped out Izzet Phoenix list while piloting vanilla Arcane Tempo

Mana base being those notches more efficient especially in the 3-color decks would sure be nice. Crucible of Worlds or Scapeshift or something in Windgrace, and Sensei's Divining Top in Aminatou, etc. would have been better.

i honestly didnt want to mention anywhere that i was upet they chose land art from standard sets, thank you now i can vent. its funny how something so trivial can piss me off, but it does!

They are the chosen ones, the illustrious TCC graduate students.

I clicked on it and I couldn't watch than it was reuploaded

Same

I was genuinely confused as to why the video was taken down

So that's why I got 2 notifications, I thought RU-vid was acting weird

I still think they're good.

they're... decent. Not good. But not god awful. Just... decent.

I cry everytime

TheTrueLeafless thanks for mentioning this lol had to scroll a while as prof won't mention this despite his buy from locals (or online stores). C1820 code til 8/12 for 20% off untapped games commander 2018 singles. Others as you said let you save should you buy all 4 decks so it makes you want to support the store rather than wizards' overpriced bs.

Im super excited about the same exact commanders, but I will just buy the singles and work them up from there... Brudiclad is going to be shenanigan worthy for sure, I love token manipulation

The 41st Spartan Channel The Labmaniacs made a video about upgrading the deck to be on theme while also keeping it cheap + near the power level of precons. You might want to look there for inspiration :)

I'd rather buy the actual 3 new singles with land sinergies and make a deck on my own.

LOL That is what I did

Gratz to U, OOM- 32. I would easily consider hopping over to buyin singles for this set, IF not for the fact that general availability, is really low. WotC really needs to buck up on tis product line to not keep making fans & customers feel this internal struggle about buyin the box or singles

Sounds like you bought Subjective Reality 😂😭

Exactly! My local store was bummed when they pulled the direct distribution. Now they have to go through a middleman. And you what that means... pricier for the consumer because every middlemen in between wants their cut.

WOTC continues to build themselves walls around that Ivory Tower

Wait, seriously? Are all LGS's going through a wholesale distributor now? That's so messed up.

Wizards stopped doing Direct because they kept fucking up constantly

SacredCharizard My Windgrace foil was scratched but I have all the correct cards I think

Kidynamo123 as for a replacement. It's free.

I got two Estrid's in my deck, and no Tuvasa....

All three of my foil generals have faded text

Lol time to play MTG arena as wild cards can be any card of the matching rarity. No missing/miscuts

Totally it is almost like they are proud to give us cards that bend themselves before even playing with them. I really want to see something done as all my masters box came pre-bent like some thrulls played MTG with goblins than packaged them into sleeves.

I still don't understand the whole curling issue, I have really old foils that aren't perfectly flat either, I just figured that was normal. I keep them in binders though so it's not really noticeable, and I'm not really a collector so I don't care much. I would think putting pressure on the cards would fix the issue though.

Russell to fix a bend by applying pressure you'd need to apply the exact bend in the opposite direction for a long while which is hard to get right and will probably just damage the card more.

I guess I don't quite understand physics then, I would think just holding it in a neutral position for a while would fix it. But I've never bothered to try anyway. Why has this only recently been a complaint though? All foils get a slight bend to them over time, don't they? I don't remember this ever being only a recent issue.

If they just stopped putting foils in these people would be willing to pay more.

Malte Koot THANK YOU, finally another one who isnt as biased by the complaining hivemind

Johann Pöhland I also felt a sense of disappointment when seeing the decklists and complaining reactions from people, but my mind changed 100% when I started playing with them! They are soooo fun. I really wish more people would see past the financial side of the decks (which still isn’t terrible, just worse than previous years) and see how awesome they are to actually play

I agree this video (and kind of this channel overall) is too hyper-focused on secondary market value. That's why I watch some of the TCC content when it looks actually relevant to me, and a few other MtG channels more often. I think it needs to be given more appreciation how many archetype 'slots' this product gives support to by existing (you know the list by now: esper zombies, bant enchantress, ninja tribal, jund land commander, more UR artificer legends...) I got my fun new toys out of the ones I got this time around, and some acceptable ultility/synergy to use as a foundation to renovate into a personalized deck. If this product wasn't produced, those toys just wouldn't exist for me to have fun with, unless I design them as well myself, and then could convince some friends to play with custom cards enough to make building the decks worth it. Yes, I'm not too happy about the price increase, there are some QA issues, and I do think each deck could have easily had one-three more good money-value cards that were right on-theme. Perhaps the ratio of ramp/card draw/removal is a bit questionable across the four decks. The mana bases could have much better value. Those are valid criticisms. But the pervasive backlash I've seen everywhere just comes off as too much, and most of it doesn't even end up expressed in a way that succintly highlights those issues. (The Command Zone videos did actually mention these things in all the review episodes. I *highly* suspect a large proportion of the nay-sayers all over their comments didn't actually watch all the way though, or weren't really paying attention through their salt-- guys, I watch on 1.5x-speed while multitasking an mmo, and you can too; I know they are 1hr+ videos and there are many of them) I think the overall end-grade is pretty indicative. Prof gave the run a B-. That's above C-level, mediocre. But he spun it as 'that's what they give when you're really failing in Grad school' -- like What? The reason you'd inflate someone to a B- in Grad school has absolutely nothing to do with rating an entertainment product. Prof is totally free to actually just give these a C or C- or whatever, if that's what he really thinks. Remind me again, does Prof play much Commander? I saw him on the ep of Game Knights, but does he in general enjoy the kind of splashy themes this year's run provides official support to, while managing to keep the designs open enough to build with real agency?

I also believe that this bias just spread to a point that no one can really think by just looking at the decklists, i think that they are playable at the precon level, such as past years deck lists, the precon wizards of the coast decks are always not that good, i agree that they could have put some more valuable reprints, but this decks are fun! They contain removals, draws, their own bombs in their strategys, the problem is that people is just looking at monetary value and forgot totally the functional part of the decks. For example, vampiric bloodlust, a deck that everybody loves is a nice one, but... in an EDH game the deck struggles a LOT to recover form a bord-wipe, and folks, the board-wipe happens in EVERY EDH game, but no one claims that the deck is shit because of that, lol

I agree with u maaaaan

Think grad school. B- is a grad school fail.

Tolarian Community College these decks wouldn't make it past the application process! Seriously though, that's fair I suppose. Great video again as always, Prof.

THIS SET GET'S A C- and that is generous

I personally thought a C was more deserving as well.

@@TolarianCommunityCollege But this isn't grad school, it's community college.

Lands are really weak.

Especially all being multi-colored and 3/4 being 3 colors. The most aggravating was a lands matters deck not having any good lands to go with it. Would have a appreciated a strip mine or something

Yeah I had to replace a ton of the lands. Uncommon duals that just come in tapped with no land type while also having guilgates already? What? Why didnt we get rix or dom land?

I just compare it the the great land options I have in the dragons one from last year. Even the ones this one have I don't like. Some you need to return a land, etc.

I was shocked that the top of library deck didn’t include the scry duals

Olli-Matti Oravainen it's still there though

He pressed the phasing button by accident

Yes, good Sir. I’ve argued that point several times over. Some folks try to defend that the raised MSRP + lowered reprint total value would discourage the “sharks” (traders & tournament players) from tis product. But, please, how is that convincing to potential EDH newbies & existing players to start/continue buying in? ...the amount of “air” in the product must b getting into some of them sympathisers’ heads

I agree. As an example, a group of 4 friends can go out and buy a $30-$40 board game and play that game for hours and hours. To do this with Commander decks at MSRP requires $160 from the group for approximately the same number of hours of enjoyment (depending on the board game chosen, of course). I play with my cousins and brother-in-law once a year, and while I've tried to get them to buy commander decks, they all have a stash of old cards from their teenage years and would rather build decks with what they have. Contrast that with me who didn't buy any Magic cards until I was an adult. For me, the Feline Ferocity deck from last year was a great buy and a ton of fun to play against some coworkers who also bought Commander 2017 decks. But you really need someone dedicated to the game to lay down $40+ dollars for a new format.

I bought me and my friend Overwatch for the cost of one of these decks. One of the hottest video games in the world with endless replayability, 40 million current players, can play with 4 of our friends, and it has a massively expanding proscene with one of the most successful inaugural esports seasons of all time. Undeniably a better value than these mediocre cash grabs by wizards. On the other hand what do you guys think is a good commander precon from previous years because I finally have enough people to show me how to play it lol

GreenLightningHood Evasive Maneuvers is pretty great for play right out of the box and there's some for sub $50 still on tcgplayer. If you already have a collection with enough stuff to build a deck I'd suggest going that route since you'll get good deck building experience as well.

Zachary Klewin Thanks for the guidance. I somehow have hundreds of cards already so I'm trying to figure out how to put them together in time for the weekend lol

Dattebayo! 👊

We wishd. But availability is a real issue. Ultimately the singles don’t rain from the sky. Even the store owners must b happy enough with the stripped down contents to rip out singles to sell. I think it’s not unfair to say each deck has >90 cards not worth opening up to have them lie around forever

That's what I did. Literally bought one card from this entire product, varina, lich queen. Always wanted a true zombie commander that had all 3 colors and the commander abilities synergies really well with what zombies want to do.

...even than it is probably better to nab a previous year's commander deck

Last year one were way better than all this together.

Unless you're building Brudiclad, in which case, you get a lot of cards for that deck in the UR deck.

Even then just look up a beginner deck tech.

Maybe that's the plan? Use it as a Commander Starter Deck, and then release a Commander Masters Set later to get the enfranchised players' money.. I mean, get them the reprints they need.. As well as the upgrades the newer players need for these new Decks.

& Sensei’s Divining Top, which practically has no other legal format (‘cept Vintag) for home😁

Yeah, I think the Esper deck was actually the most disappointing as far as reprints offered.

I agree. The only positive I see is that it would cost less to buy the precon than the individual cards. This is the first year since 2013 that I won't buy any of the EDH precon decks. I'd rather spend my $40 on upgrades to my existing decks.

Enchanted Celebi quite a few people have been having issues of missing cards in the decks

At least you didn't get one where all the cards inside were switched for lands. It happened to me once -_-

i bought adaptive enchatments and 25%of the deck is miscut on the bottom left.The worst is that commander are made in US and not in belgium so there is no way to have good cardbard.

jardin Zen I love miscut cards. I would have loved that if it happened to mine.

To /some/ extent they allow for playability. Once the enchantment deck had an auras-matter and enchantment creatures matter subtheme to them, for example, some cheap cards were inevitable; Boon Satyr isn't a valuable card but it is a very good card if Kestia is your commander-- and there aren't really a lot of valid replacements for it that do have value, since the most expensive (non-god, since those are mostly eh in Kestia) enchantment creature is only like $3, and Courser is probably worse than Boon Satyr in the deck. There are a number of cards in this sort of category that spring to mind; Overgrowth is amazing with Estrid and I would want /more/ of those type of effects in the deck, never mind that all of them save Utopia Sprawl are bulk price. At the same time yes, there are a number of cards in the decks that are just bad and /don't/ have a lot of justification. When your new cards are falling into the bulk range, that's a problem. Those are the cards that sell the set, and while we have to accept the occasional dud (here's looking at you, Territorial Hellkite), it feels like this set has a /lot/ of them.

I understand the disappointment but it's only his opinion. It is up to you whether you think yourself if you feel you wanted your money.

The Dark One Thanks for the support! I got a nice amount of upgrading cards and i'll be replacing about 16-17 cards in deck (only 2 of them are lands) so my spells might get better, because 25% of them will be new. Also, I am a huge fan of kaladesh artwork (im collecting foils), so Saheeli will be the most satisfying commander to look at (and artifacts and some other cards have same set theme). And, actually, i think that my deck will recive some more upgrades (like rhystic study and others) to make the worst sides of the deck better. And the most important for me, as i think now, is a personal attachment to the deck and commanders. In my LGS EDH community is not very competitive, so i might get a chance. Sorry for my long response. And my English level might be bad, i live in Russia( Thanks a lot again!

Radicalbeast Thanks for the response. My goal was to get the best precon i could and upgrade, and i thought this be the right deck to choose. But now i have a different opinion.

You have to also factor in the monetary side of things, this just came out. Some hype cards are gonna be a lot, but other cards prices may flux depending on other circumstances as time goes on.

Gogo Crabster Saheeli has a lot of cool stuff and looks to be fun. I preordered the deck, admittedly below MSRP, and am excited to work with it (despite already having Edgar Markov and Commander Anthology 2).

Yeah, I'm super excited about all of the new commanders, and the mediocre decklists are okay. There are still plenty of cards in them that I've wanted as singles for a while, and fine utility stuff. I've already got a lot of the lands-matter stuff Windgrace's list is missing anyway, so it's just a matter of choosing more payoffs to craft in to the synergy. I''ve also got really cool stuff in mind to custom-build out for Brudiclad (as a lieutenant) and Tawnos, and while I'm not taking on the projects right now, I can see some fun potential in the other new commanders. Like, yeah, I'll take a spread of passable if a bit mediocre overall lists due to being split in so many directions, along with a whole slew of compelling new Legends. Especially since my two playgroups have a range of (on the Command Zone scale) pretty casual to focused/optimized, with almost no competitive. The value proposition for this product is just there for me, so I got half of them. (I can't justify just dropping like $100+ on cardboard atm and I can only work on so many deck-building projects at once...)

I agree. I preordered all these decks (cause I’m a glutton for Commander) and I had a great time. I played each deck a minimum of 2 times each and they performed fine against the other precons and built decks. They definitely don’t compare to spiky end-the-game-on-turn-three decks, but they have plenty of removal and interaction to keep up otherwise. I do agree with the professor about the value aspect. No notable reprints or new cards of note to justify the price increase. I also think the Jund deck was stronger than given credit for. Just feel like venting after my commander weekend.

I played subjective reality, it can be fun. Though there are a lot of cards that can easily be replaced with better version. The deck feels rather slow at the start and could do better with decent lands.

After watching Gameknights with all the precons battling against each other I was really excited about the new decks. Reprints is a thing though, I agree with the professor on that point, but overall I disagree.

Today I played with my commander group in our LGS, had a blast with the new decks, I already have the upgrades ready for next weekend, really exited to get brewing. It's really easy bashing a product without even trying it, I see other channels giving really good content and playtesting to get a feel for the decks and possible upgrades, pros and cons, here I just heard complains about the financial value of the product, and a really bad examination of the actual decks, I feel sorry for the people who miss all the great fun that these products bring to the new and old players in the commander tables.

5 more dollars but going back to 2013 levels of junk inside the decks.

hahah Probably, WOTC loves doing knee jerk business decisions, that cost them thousands of dollars

Google it yourself. They said they increase the powerlevel of the commander precons and therefore raise the price. Now every defender acts like they never said it. I remember it was in an newsarticle on their own website, but it could be that they deleted it sometime after.

It's true but we all know WOTC is like that hunting buddy you bring along and know they are going to shoot themselves in the foot and not have enough supplies forcing you to share with them, so this is ultimately nothing new ;P

I didn't read the article but my friend was playing the new enchantment deck yesterday against my Meren and my Atraxa and he handled himself pretty nicely. He won 2 games out of 6 and my decks are not straight out the box haha. I got an immortal sun and doubling season and stuff

I asked because I didn't find a result quickly and can't find the exact statement. I wanted somebody who knew to just post a link real quick, y'know?